A Thousand Deaths (11 page)

"I don't know," said Courane. "I could find out from TECT, but don't you know why?"

"Oh," said the young girl, "I know the reason I was separated from my family. I was taking care of a bird, a beautiful bird with a long tail of blue and white feathers. It was hurt and I was taking care of it. You're not supposed to have birds or animals like that in your house. They belong to the Representative, of course. Or to TECT in the name of the Representative."

"Of course," said Courane.

"Then one day last week, a woman from my village told me that I should be careful. The bird could get me in trouble. I told her that I was just taking care of it until it could fly again. She didn't like me, she never did. I think she thought I was having her husband. Then two days ago, the tect in the school building told me I had to report to the Paris Substation, that I was coming here. That was my crime. But why did they punish me this way?"

"I can't tell," said Courane.

Nneka was tall for her age but slender, with very long, delicate fingers and a natural and unrehearsed grace about all her movements. Her eyes were of a deep and liquid brown that captured attention, even drawing it away from her other striking features. She had high, prominent cheekbones and a mouth that smiled readily. She wore plastic ornaments in her ears and around her neck, the same kind of inexpensive jewelry that was worn in Moscow and Chicago and Manila. The only people who wore traditional African styles and designs were TECT's employees, those who were hired to represent a vanished black culture, between nine in the morning and five in the afternoon, Monday through Friday. It was impossible to find anyone wearing ivory necklaces or brightly printed dashikis on the weekend. Molly had learned the penalty for doing that kind of thing.

"What will it be like for me here?" Nneka asked in a frightened voice.

"It may be very nice," said Courane. "You'll miss your family and friends, but you can take care of all the birds you want. Just don't break any of TECT's rules for living in a colony."

"What are they?" she asked.

"We're not sure yet," he said regretfully. And he thought, That's just part of TECT's cruel and usual punishment.

 

Daan had meant what he said. He gave Courane several sheets of paper covered with his dense, cramped handwriting. "This is every bit of information I've been able to get out of TECT," he said, "plus everything I've observed myself. It isn't very much, but it's a start. You might be able to add something important. Maybe in a few years or a hundred years, we'll be able to tell Earth how to deal with this disease, and then TECT won't send any more people here."

Courane glanced through the pages and decided that it might be a lot easier to find a cure for D syndrome than decipher Daan's notes. "I don't understand why there hasn't been more progress," he said. "The colony has been here for a long time. It can't be that you and I are the first people to wonder about this sickness."

Daan frowned. "We're not, of course we're not. The trouble has been that the people in the past who've tried to work on it have been patients themselves, not prisoners. So they get a little foothold and make a few observations and then they begin forgetting everything. All their work goes for nothing. There may have been a dozen others ahead of us, but they've provided no documentation. If they did write anything down, it was discarded by others in the colony who didn't know its importance."

"And now you're passing it on to me. Daan, I want you to know that I'm absolutely the wrong person. I don't understand a thing about any of this."

"I didn't either when I started," said Daan.

"Then why won't you continue? I don't even know where to start. You're a lot better at this than I'll be."

Daan looked very sad. "The day before yesterday, I made a significant discovery," he said.
 

"Oh?"

"I discovered that I'm not a prisoner. I'm a patient."

Courane was startled. He swallowed hard, but was unable to think of an appropriate reply.

"I was sledding in some firewood with Arthur and I fell apart. I can't remember what it was like, but Arthur said it lasted only about three or four minutes. I know what it must have looked like, though. I've seen it often enough. One crazy guy screaming and another guy patting him on the shoulder saying, 'There, there.' After a hundred and twenty-five years, that's the best we can do: There, there.' "

Courane, embarrassed, kept his attention on the pages of notes, but he couldn't focus his eyes on them.

"I suggested some things you might investigate first," said Daan.

"Thanks," muttered Courane. The shock of Daan's illness probably disturbed him more than it bothered Daan. It was a death sentence, and it was taking away a good man and a friend.

"Try to find out if the disease is hereditary or caused by conditions in the environment. Try to see if TECT can guess about possible prevention and treatment measures, based on any kind of relation to other brain disorders. Make wild guesses and try them out. That's not the scientific way to go about an experiment, but we don't have the time and the luxury to afford the rigorous method."

"I'll do my best," said Courane. "I really will."

"It's too late for me," said Daan. "But see if you can't do something for the people who come after me."

Courane tried to keep his promise, even though he hadn't had enough education to understand most of what TECT told him, or the imagination to know the best way to pursue the matter. He accepted Daan's advice and dug into the nature of memory and diseases of the neurological system. He received a lot of answers from TECT, most of them couched in impenetrable jargon, some of them apparently almost devoid of meaning. But by staying with the task, Courane was able to learn valuable bits of genuine information, and each bit was won with difficulty from a grudging TECT.

 

"Well, Mom, this is good-bye."

Courane's mother tried to keep from crying, but a single tear escaped and betrayed her concern. She wiped it away and tried to pretend that it hadn't happened. "Will you call?" she asked.

"New York, Mom. I've always wanted to live there. How could TECT have known? This is one of the best things that's ever happened to me."

She acted as though she hadn't heard him say a word. "Call me as soon as you get there. You have to find a place to stay first. Don't be in a hurry and don't rent the first apartment you see. Make sure it's in a good neighborhood. Then call me and tell me all about it. I'll be worried until I hear from you, Sandy."

Courane was just a little upset by his mother's anxiety. "You know what it's like, Mom," he said. "You've seen pictures. There aren't any good neighborhoods in New York. It isn't like Greusching."

"That's what I'm worried about, Sandy."

"Well, don't worry."

They looked at each other for a moment. Courane shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He set his suitcase down on the carpet.

"I wish I could help you," she said, "but I know this is something you have to do by yourself."

"TECT ordered me to New York, not you and Dad." Courane smiled; he really was very excited. He wanted to go to the top of the Continental State Building and go skating in Representative Plaza and take the subway out to the Coney Island reconstruction.

"Yes, I know."

Courane was unhappy about his mother's reaction. She seemed much more distraught than when he had left to go to Pilessio. "What's wrong, Mom?" he asked. "You look like you're really suffering."

She patted at her cheeks. "Do I? I'm sorry, Sandy, I don't mean to. You're my son and I love you, and I just feel so useless. You'll be so far away. I've raised you and now I don't like to let you go, even though I know I have to eventually. I want everything to be good for you. You're bound to run into some troubles, and I won't be there to help you."

He smiled gently and kissed her. "I have to leave now, Mom," he said. She cried, not trying to hide her tears any longer. She hugged him, and he kissed her again.

"Good-bye, Sandy," she said.

"Good-bye, Mom."

He picked up his suitcase and walked down the hallway. While he waited for the elevator to arrive, he turned to look at his mother a last time.

"You'll call?" she said.

"Yes, Mom." The elevator door opened.

"Good-bye, Sandy."

The elevator let him out downstairs and he walked through the lobby of the building. Alohilani was waiting for him. "Let's sit down," she said. They sat on a couch facing the fireplace. It was August and there were pieces of wood fished from the river in the fireplace; the wood was smooth and strange-looking from its time in the river, and it had been collected by Goldie. She thought it looked artistic. As soon as it grew cold, the branches would be replaced by lengths of firewood. Goldie wouldn't let anyone burn her driftwood.

"I wish we could spend more time together," said Courane.

"So do I," said Alohilani. Her eyes were large and dark and moist.

"Maybe if–"

"Sandy, there's something I want to tell you. You know that in a little while I'll be upstairs. I want you to know—"

"Lani, I love you. I don't even want to think about the other part."

"You have to think about it, Sandy." She couldn't control her tears as well as his mother, and they raced in glistening streaks down her lovely face. "There's nothing either you or I can do about it."

Courane's expression was bitter. "TECT," he said, his voice filled with grief. "It takes care of sick people all the time. It has cures for everything. Almost everything. But because it doesn't have a cure for D, it sends the patients here. It's afraid of its own ignorance. It doesn't want anyone to find out that it doesn't know everything. And those people it does cure, they don't even deserve it. Yet you, the most beautiful, kindest person I've ever known, you have to..." His voice trailed off.

She put a hand on the side of his face and leaned forward to kiss him. "Shh," she whispered.

"It's true."

Alohilani curled against his body and he put one arm around her in a vain protective gesture. "You can't decide who deserves to be saved, Sandy," she said. "Everyone deserves to be saved. You can't divide your concern and your love that way. It's not a matter of who deserves to be loved, but who needs to be."

"I need to be loved," he said.

"You are loved, Sandy. I love you."

He kissed her and held her, thinking about TECT's evil sense of humor. Could the machine have had any idea of creating just such personal tragedies when it sent people to Planet D? Or was Courane giving the computer more credit than it deserved? It didn't make any difference in the long run: eventually the result was the same. If TECT couldn't be blamed for causing the pain, it could be held accountable for not ending it.

"Will you think of me after I'm gone?" said Alohilani. She wasn't grief-stricken about her own approaching death. She had passed into the stage of calm acceptance, and her dignity only magnified her beauty.

"Of course I will," said Courane.

"Then remember me and have compassion for everyone who needs it."

Courane sighed. "You said it before, Lani—everyone needs it."

"Then you must give it to them."

It was time to walk with Rachel to the barn. They stood together in thoughtful silence for a long time. "Kenny used to love these animals," he said at last. He watched the osoi swinging their great horned heads in their stalls.

"I like the blerds better," said Rachel. She had been given the barn job after Kenny died.

"Kenny liked the blerds, too. He had another name for them. He told me once."

Rachel looked into Courane s face. Another silence grew between them. "What was Kenny's name for them?"

Courane shook his head. "I can't remember."

"That's all right," said Rachel. "There, there."

"A year ago, I was saying that to Lani." He stared down at the straw-covered floor and tried to get control of his feelings.

"I wish I could do more for you, Sandy. I wish I could make everything all right."

"Knowing that you care helps me, Rachel."

"I wish I could relieve your pain or make you happy."

Courane stared past her. "Pain is nothing, Rachel," he said. "Pain is one of the easiest things in the world to beat. But neither you nor anyone else can make me happy ever again."

Now Rachel began to weep. "I could, Sandy, I know I could if you'd only let me."

He held her face in his hands. His voice was very soft. "Rachel, I'm trying to save you from the kind of grief I've gone through. When Lani died, it was terrible. But much worse were the times when she didn't know who I was."

"I would understand."

"You would hurt, Rachel," he said. He turned away from her. At least the illness would release him from the agony of his memories.

 

 

 

Five

 

 

On Planet D the inmates of tect's ambiguous jailhouse spent a great deal of time trying to decide which of their inalienable rights had nevertheless been taken away, and which still remained in their grasp. The line dividing them from liberty was indistinct, yet they all feared to cross it and risk even greater punishment from TECT.

"What more could it do to us?" asked Fletcher.

"It could kill us," said Arthur.

"It's doing that already," said Fletcher. "We're not going home. We'll all spend the rest of our lives here. TECT has no intention of pardoning us. We're here on indeterminate sentences. Did anyone tell you how long you had to serve?"

"No," said Goldie.

"None of us is ever going back to Earth."

"I don't believe that," said Courane. He didn't
want
to believe it. He had spent months telling himself that he'd just serve his time and be glad to go home. He'd work hard at whatever TECT assigned once he was back on Earth. He'd never fail again.

"You come with me, Cap," said Fletcher. He led Courane to the tect room and identified himself to the machine. Behind them Arthur and Daan watched; Goldie had decided she didn't want to have any further part in the discussion. "Hey, TECT, how manypeople have been sent here to Planet D altogether since the beginning of this colony?"